THIS WEEKEND Scary Movie 3 hung on to the top spot
at the box office this weekend, while most of the movies in the top ten
had strong holdovers, but Brother Bear
would have been number one had it opened wide on Friday instead of Saturday.

Dropping a large 58% from last weekend, the spoof comedy Scary
Movie 3 remained at number one for a second straight weekend.
Collecting $20M, according to final
studio figures, Scary 3's percentage
drop was larger than the drops of the two previous films in the franchise,
with Scary Movie falling 38.1% and
Scary Movie 2 falling 53.4%.
However, all you Scary Movie fans out
there, Scary Movie 4 is already in
the works. With a total cume to date of $77.5M, look for Scary
Movie 3 to end its run with around $120-125M.

Coming in with a strong second place showing was the Disney animated
adventure, Brother Bear. After
a stellar limited opening last weekend, Bear
expanded nationwide on Saturday, dooming its hopes for a first place finish.
Bear made $19.4M over the 2-day period,
for a per screen average of $6,404, tops in the top 10. Had the movie
opened on Friday, Bear would have easily
taken the top spot, which would have been very useful in advertising over
the next week, especially as holdovers need to position themselves as viable
alternatives to The Matrix Revolutions,
which unspools worldwide on Wednesday.

Landing in third place was the horror remake The
Texas Chainsaw Massacre, with a take of $10.8M. Falling
only 25.2% from last weekend, Massacre's
total cume now stands at $66M. In fourth place was the true story
of Radio, which took in $9.6M, a drop
of only 27.5%. The total for the Cuba Gooding Jr./Ed Harris film
is now $26.8M. A final gross in the $50-55M range seems likely.

The two films with the lowest percentage drops in the top ten landed
in fifth and sixth place this weekend. In fifth was the legal thriller,
Runaway Jury, which fell a small 22.7%
from last weekend to $6.5M. Its cume is now $33.3M. And in
sixth place was Mystic River, which
fell 20% to a weekend gross of $6.2M. The total for the Clint Eastwood-directed
film is now $33.5M.

Seventh and eighth place belong to two members of the $60M club.
In seventh was the first half of Quentin Tarantino's fourth film, Kill
Bill, which took in $4.529M this weekend, bringing its cume
to $60.8M. In eighth place was School of
Rock, which brought in $4.522M this weekend. The total
for the Jack Black comedy is now $69.2M.

In ninth place was Intolerable Cruelty,
which took in $2.5M, bringing its total to $31.9M. And rounding out
the top ten was the canine comedy Good Boy!
which barked up $2.2M this weekend, bringing its cume to $35.2M.

Outside of the top ten, the Meg Ryan drama In
The Cut expanded into 825 theaters this weekend and came in
at number eleven with a total of $2M, for a per screen average of $2,501.
Opening in limited release was the Anthony Hopkins/Nicole Kidman drama
The Human Stain, which brought in $1.08M
from 160 screens, for an average of $6,463. And the re-release of
Alien scared up $1.02M, bringing its
total from its Wednesday debut to $1.3M.

Compared to projections, Brother Bear
came in slightly higher than my $18M prediction, Alien:
The Director's Cut came in on target with my $1M projection,
while In The Cut came in a little below
my $4M forecast.

The top 10 was down 11.7% from last year when The
Santa Clause 2 opened up on top with $29M, and down 33.2% from
2001 when Monsters, Inc. exploded at
number one with $62.5M.

This column is updated three times each week:
Thursday
(upcoming weekend's summary), Sunday
(post-weekend analysis with estimates), and Monday
night (actuals). Data source: Exhibitor
Relations, EDI. Opinions expressed
in this column are those solely of the author.